Ineffable
Last week one of my professors asked the question, "in the aftermath of trauma, why so much poetry?"
Trauma defies language. It is the un-metabolized remains that exist in liminality, neither dead nor alive. Words cannot do it justice. Trauma is ineffable.
So why so many poems?
Poetry works differently in the brain than normal language, stimulating creative and logical systems of the brain simultaneously. It works like music. In helps to integrate our minds. But brain science is such an unsatisfactorily cold answer.
Being human is to be warm. It is to wonder, to be hungry, to ache, to desire, to laugh, to sleep, to not know. Being human is ineffable.
These are uncertain days. These are human days.
What poems does your heart speak/mutter/groan?
Will you write them?
Of interest
1. Poems - Sorry for your troubles by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Recordings by the author.
2. Poems - A classic and a favorite: The Guest House by Rumi.